The prevalence of a negative service quality gap in Ethiopia is just mind-boggling. Studies spanning the public, banking, and telecommunications sectors have discovered that customers are continuously disappointed by service quality that falls short of their expectations. People share their experience with a service provider on the platform itself, other listing sites, and social media. Ratings are one among the many feedback tools, which have become ubiquitous.
Businesses are increasingly integrating feedback features within their applications, where customers report their experiences with the company or individual contractor. Among these, the transportation industry- ride-hailing platforms’ driver rating is at the forefront. How seriously these companies take ratings and how consequential it is for the subjects is, however, disputable. Can you even avoid the worst-rated drivers, or is it one of the superficial customer experience improvement functions?
Taking the largest market players, Ride, Feres, and Yango, into consideration, each states its commitment to service quality improvement, taking driver ratings as a crucial input. They have policies that institute terms and conditions for drivers as well as encourage ratings by prompting passengers through their apps. The process of translating ratings into effects, then on, is taken into the hands of the company, which renders it vague and lacks accountability.
To illustrate, let's take a look at Yango’s policy. It bases driver assessment on the last 150 ratings received. Ratings are expected to be within the set range; a weighted average lower than the threshold results in fallouts. Drivers could be deprioritised in receiving requests, temporarily blocked, or put on probation lasting about 6 months after consistently falling below par. Feres’s policy also states that continuously low ratings lead to suspension and deactivation. Ride’s approach is more of a positive reward system that grants high-rated drivers more benefits through diverse membership levels.
You can see a couple of loopholes here. One is the high number of ratings needed to evaluate a driver. If a driver makes 10 trips a day, not each gets rated, as not all orders come through apps, and it's not customary for Ethiopian passengers to rate. Say it gets 3 scores a day, it will be at least 50 days before making substantial evaluations. In addition, after getting the ratings, the system leaves out customers from the process. It’s unclear to what extent the company follows through on its policies.
That is a legitimate concern, as multiple customers came forward, being disappointed by the nonchalance of service providers after they reported on serious offences, including sexual advances by drivers. They were offered hollow words of apology and, at times, discredited. The rules of conduct are there, but the course towards meaningful measures seems disconnected.
No wonder drivers continue to act out in what is supposed to be a safer and better means of commuting—the key selling point of these services. Only a few customers care to give ratings; those ratings aren’t really consequential, and if, by a mere chance, they get suspended on one, there are multiple platforms they can jump right on. Drivers get away with repelling behaviour while the service quality within the industry slowly deteriorates.
Global industry giants give service quality the weight it deserves. Grab, the Southeast Asian company with over 100 million users, calculates driver performance based on the most recent 100 ratings received. This helps with quick improvements through notifications and warnings, before leading to suspension. The platform also compensates for non-rated trips by evaluating trip completion counts and frequency of driver-induced cancellations. It also displays drivers with their ratings, which allows customers to cancel if they feel uncomfortable. With the immediacy of consequences, it’s able to manage driver misconduct effectively.
Bolt, the African market dominant, takes just the last 40 rates for driver assessment, which hasten betterments. This isn’t only a work allocation metric, but it is made visible on the app for commuters to choose to ride along or decline a driver. Drivers’ conduct is rewarded and penalised in tangible means, motivating them to keep up or change. That’s where Ethiopian companies are left behind.
An icon of cross-company alliance is Uber, which, in cooperation with Lyft, initiated the Industry Sharing Safety Program. This information-sharing system, within ride and delivery service providers, prevents serious assailant drivers from continuing to work, hopping across platforms.
Time calls for ratings to have severe implications, reports to be seriously handled, and industry-wide record-keeping systems to be established. Having customers who are continuously dissatisfied is a damaging factor to business. Customers demand what they paid for, and are growing intolerant of vulgar behavior in the transportation sector.
